Katherine Ann Kent was the first woman to be enlisted from Washington for extended active duty with the Coast Guard since WWII. This is her story.
“24 young women reported to Bainbridge Naval Training Center as the first class recruited after the close of WWII. I was one of them. I graduated from high school in the spring of 1964 in Tacoma, WA, [and] no jobs were available … I would have done anything to be employed and have a job. It was early December [when] I heard on the radio that the Coast Guard was recruiting for a new reserve training program. One-year active duty for training then three years in a local reserve unit. I quickly hunted up the CG recruiter….
This first group was the guinea pigs. Our Navy company commander was pretty tough on us. In boot camp, we competed with two large companies of women, Navy recruits. We were lucky because we had all pre-qualified for Class A schools. Our choice of schools was limited to Yeoman or Storekeeper … Class A school was in Groton, CT. We were upstairs over the BOQ. 20-plus women on a base that had never had co-ed.
We could only be stationed at district offices. There were two of us assigned to the 2nd Coast Guard District St Louis, MO. One yeoman and one storekeeper. At the end of my one year of active duty, I stayed in St Louis. I was assigned to a reserve unit at Lambert Field and went to work in private industry. They hired me because of my military training, they were surprised I didn’t know how to do it their way. I knew the CG way. When it was time for my two weeks active duty, I requested to be assigned to the 13th CG district in Seattle. A way to get home on the CG. They would pay one way on an out-of-district assignment.
I did my two weeks in the pay office of the 13th CG district. They were short 2 storekeepers, and I asked about coming back on active duty to fill one of them. My request went to headquarters and was eventually approved. In the meantime, I am back in the Tacoma Reserve unit working, dating a Coastie, and waiting for the word. In the spring of 67, I came back on active duty as a third-class storekeeper, assigned to the pay office and in charge of the officer’s pay and the men in transit between the 13th and 17th CG districts. Before the end of 67, I was married to my Coastie, a 2nd class boatswain mate on the CGC Fir. I made 2nd class and by January 69. I was on the list for first when my enlistment was up.
We were planning a family, so I took my honorable discharge and departed … Our Coast Guard career brought us to the 17th CG district in March of 70. Base Ketchikan, Five Finger Light, the CGC Sedge, Homer, AK. BMC BG Mitchell retired from the CGC Sedge on November 1, 1980.
We were one of the very first to retire and stay in Homer. It has been our pleasure to help the community accept the Coast Guard. Homer Alaska became the fifth city in Alaska to be designated [2023] a Coast Guard City.”
#USCG #CoastGuard #USCoastGuard #WomensHistory #herstory
